Hospitals have to use a lot of single-use plastics to deliver care for patients. In today’s episode, we look at how one is cutting down through their medical plastics recycling initiative.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
If you’ve ever been to a hospital, you know how much plastic there is all around. From syringes, IV bags, catheters, test kits, gloves, scalpels, the list goes on. But, there’s some good news. Some hospitals are now finding innovative ways to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in the trash.
We had Hamid Torabzadeh and Charlie Adams from our Possibly Team look into this.
Hamid Torabzadeh: Hi, Megan!
Charlie Adams: Hello!
Megan Hall: So when you’re at the hospital, you might see a lot of plastic getting thrown out, but how big of a problem is this?
Hamid Torabzadeh: In the U.S., health care facilities create about 14,000 tons of garbage every day.
Charlie Adams: That’s almost 2% of all municipal waste.
Hamid Torabzadeh: And about one quarter of that is plastic.
Megan Hall: That’s a lot!
Charlie Adams: It is! So to try to reduce this waste, the folks at the University of Michigan Health started a program to recycle more of these plastics.
Hamid Torabzadeh: And specifically, they zeroed in on waste in the operating room – one of the biggest sources of plastic.
Charlie Adams: To learn more, we talked with Christopher Victory, the Health Sustainability Consultant at U of M Health.
Hamid Torabzadeh: He says his first step was to get buy-in from the frontline healthcare workers in the operating room:
Christopher Victory: They’re there with their number one priority is to, in a sense, perform miracles inside operating rooms. We don’t want to make this hard to do. So it needs to be seamless and easy.
Charlie Adams: To do that, the U of M team developed a simple recycling system.
Hamid Torabzadeh: It turned a container that used to be used for garbage into one for all commingled recyclables.
Megan Hall: What are commingled recyclables?
Hamid Torabzadeh: Commingled simply means different types of plastics can all go into one bin while in the operating room.
Charlie Adams: They are then separated and sorted by the recycling facility based on how they can be recycled.
Hamid Torabzadeh: This makes it super simple for healthcare workers so they can focus on patient care.
Megan Hall: Great! And what exactly can be recycled?
Charlie Adams: Good question. U of M mainly recycles soft medical plastics that are used to package supplies.
Hamid Torabzadeh: That includes the so-called “blue wrap” commonly used to package surgical tools like scalpels after they’ve been sterilized.
Charlie Adams: Healthcare providers can also recycle rigid plastics like those kidney-shaped containers used to collect supplies during surgeries. That is, as long as they aren’t contaminated.
Megan Hall: Is there any risk of contamination with these plastics?
Hamid Torabzadeh: No. Christopher explains why:
Christopher Victory: We’re collecting this pre-case. So before there’s a patient wheeled in here, all these supplies are opened up and getting ready for the case. So it’s really easy to kind of collect those in a sterile environment, and we don’t have to worry about blood or bodily fluids contaminating this material.
Megan Hall: Got it. And has the program made an impact yet?
Hamid Torabzadeh: In just a six-month pilot at two hospitals, healthcare workers collected and recycled over 2.5 tons of plastic material.
Charlie Adams: And Christopher says that number has grown to 11 tons since the pilot ended.
Megan Hall: How does that compare to the amount of trash they usually throw out?
Hamid Torabzadeh: We couldn’t get that number from the hospital, so it’s tough to say how much of an impact it’s having.
Charlie Adams: But either way, that’s a lot of plastic that would have ended up in the landfill before this program.
Megan Hall: So why can’t all hospitals do this?
Hamid Torabzadeh: You read my mind! Christopher has some thoughts:
Christopher Victory: It’s very difficult to do recycling in a healthcare environment. We’re highly regulated. Space constraints. Of course, patient care is number one.
Charlie Adams: But with creativity and collaboration, he says others can follow their lead.
Hamid Torabzadeh: His advice – learn about what other medical centers are doing, find trusted recycling partners, and get buy-in from frontline healthcare teams.
Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Hamid and Charlie!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and The Public’s Radio.
The post How can hospitals cut their plastic waste? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.